Kenneth Copeland - How To Call On the Goodness of God
And we're going to do something right here. Look in Mark, chapter six, verse three, "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us"? And they were offended at him. Jesus said unto them, "A prophet is not without honor, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and among his own house". This is in Nazareth. He was raised here. "And he could there do no mighty work save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them. And he marveled because of their unbelief". So we're not going to have any unbelief this morning. You believe in miracles? You believe in mighty works? We're miracle believing people. Glory to God. Hallelujah. Hey, thank You, Jesus.
What is unbelief? Unbelief is not non-belief. Everybody's believing something all the time. All the time. Unbelief is choosing not to believe what God has said in His Word. That's unbelief. They didn't believe anything He told them, and if you read that in the book of Luke, He preached. He preached that day. Amen. It says he began to say... Well, hey, he preached. He took the time to preach. They didn't believe anything He said when He got down to that point. One point today. Today's the day. Today's the day. This scripture is fulfilled in your ears today. Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, I don't believe that. I don't believe that.
Now, where does faith come from? Faith comes from hearing and hearing by the Word of God. He preached the Word of God. He didn't tell them He's the Son of God. He preached the Word. He started out in the book of Isaiah, right where Isaiah prophesied about Him, and He preached from there. He said, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for He has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor". Well, poor, you don't have to be poor anymore. To heal the broken heart. You don't have... Hey. He is our Jubilee. He's the healer. He's the goodness of God in manifestation. Hallelujah. Now, Jesus... I'll tell you, Gloria says it all the time. I've been saying it all these years. He is so easy to receive from. It's very, very important to spend time.
Study is wonderful. Study is good. It's good. But when you spend time browsing in the Word and few weeks ago, I decided, well, I didn't decide it, I was impressed in my spirit to do it. I'm going to read the book of Mark again. I'm just going to read through it. Would you enjoy my telling you what I found? Good, because I'm going to tell you... Do you remember? I know you do. Not a centurion, the Centurion, that had the sick servant. Remember... Now this is in Capernaum, Jesus' headquarters. He had built a synagogue. That synagogue is where Jarius was leader of the synagogue, and that's Jesus' hometown synagogue. And He said...
Now, this is just how easy Jesus is. They came to Jesus, He said, "I'll come and heal him". "I'll come and heal him". And the Centurion said no. And one translation said, "I'm not important enough". Now how many of you have been in the military? Okay. Now he is over at least a hundred soldiers. What branch of service? Okay. He's a company commander. At least a hundred men. Now that kind of sets the stage for it, doesn't it? So he has authority, and he says something, they do it. Of course, they do, he's the company commander, and he's a Roman commander. That's serious business. Amen. And he said, "I'm not important enough". You just say the word, my servant will be healed, because I'm a man of authority and I recognize authority, and you have it.
Now, what authority did he recognize? He recognized the authority of a prophet. Now, the Centurion, not a Centurion, the Centurion in command of the crucifixion was the same Centurion. He's the one that said, "He had to be the Son of God". He knew He was a prophet. He knew He had authority. But then he saw this man that had been beaten nearly to death, and He didn't even look like a human anymore, and He still had a loud voice. He cried with a loud voice and He said, "Forgive them. They don't know what they're doing," and he's standing there watching all of this. He said, "This must have been the Son of God". He recognized Him.
Now do the search, and look, and see the locations. Caesarea was actually the area where Pilate lived, very close by. And at Caesarea, there was a Centurion by the name of Cornelius. Now we know his name. Yeehaw. Just from browsing through the book of Mark, and the Spirit of God says, "Hey, son". Whoa. He's the healer. He's everything. Then He had this man on His heart and mind. He knew him. He knew who he was. He knew what was going to happen. And this man was the one that brought the Word to you at me. That Centurion, a devout man, built the synagogue recognized that He was the Son of God, and he said, "I've got to have more of this," and he just kept giving to God and giving to God. And the angel came and said, "Oh, okay, son. Today's the day. Gather the whole household around. This is it. This is what I prepared you for".
God is so good. He is so wonderful and so good this morning. And the healing has already started. Glory to God. Glory to God. It's wonderful when you start out with the dessert, isn't it? Oh, glory to God. Thank You, Lord Jesus. Go with me to Mark, chapter 10, 45th verse. "For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister". That in itself is... Oh, my. Don't you love Him? "And to give His life a ransom for many. And they came to Jericho, and as He went out of Jericho with His disciples and a great number of people, blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, sat by the wayside begging. When he had heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, 'Jesus, thou son of David...'"
Now, wait. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's just stop right there and go to Matthew, hold your place there, Matthew 22, and look, because now this will open... This is an opening of a door that explains so much, that religious people just don't get it. All right. 41. "While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, saying, What think ye of Christ? Whose son is he? They say unto him, the son of David". Do you have that now? Okay. Now let's go back over here again. I want you to see this.
Verse 46. "They came to Jericho: and as he went out of Jericho with his disciples and a great number of people, blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, sat by the wayside begging. And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out, Jesus, thou son of David". He knew who He was. Jesus Messiah, Jesus Messiah, Jesus Messiah. The rest of them didn't know what he was talking about. They tried to shut him up. You can't shut... When somebody knew He was Messiah, whoa. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Send Him over here to me. Send Him over here. Get out of His way. He knows who I am. He knows who I am. Son of David, have mercy on me.
Now, if you realize, this is still in the days of the first covenant. The Hebrew word, hesed, very difficult to explain. But once you see it used, it's translated, mercy. It's translated, love and kindness. Now David and Jonathan had an actual blood covenant. They had cut a covenant of blood together. And David said, "Is there no one of Jonathan's that I can show hesed to"? Hesed is the power of covenant, that drives you to give to that person with whom you are in covenant. And God is filled with compassion and hesed. When they began to cry out, the singers began to cry out. When Jehoshaphat consulted with the people, God didn't tell him to set singers. He consulted with the people and they decided to set singers. What did they cry? He's good. His hesed endures forever.
When they said that, God moved. When they called on hesed, God moved. And then it came to pass what he'd said to the prophet. The battle's mine. You get over on my mercy. You get over on my covenant hesed, and I'll fight this thing for you. Are you calling me good? Oh, yeah. I'm so good. I'm good. I'm total good. I'm total good, and I'm filled with mercy and compassion. I have a drive to give and I so love the world that I gave my only begotten Son. That is mercy and hesed in action. And that's what Bartimaeus did. How... Do hesed on me. Do hesed on me, Messiah.
Now look at this. Are you as excited about this as I am? Mark 10:46, again. "They came to Jericho and he went out of Jericho with his disciples and a great number of people. Blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, sat by the highway side begging. And when he had heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, 'Jesus, thou Son of David, have hesed on me. Do hesed on me.' Many charged him that he should hold his peace, but he cried the more a great deal, 'Thou Son of David do hesed on me.' Jesus stood still. He stopped him in his tracks".
Now, notice this. Faith is an act. To be a temple beggar, like the man at the beautiful gate of the temple, you had to prove that you were blind, and you wore a coat that showed that you were not a scam artist. You were actually blind, and that the priests had checked you out and you were authorized as a beggar. So he didn't look stringy and bad. He was a successful beggar. He had that nice coat on. He was successful. He was anointed at it when he had that coat on. That meant we support him. And so, be of good comfort, he calleth the, and he, casting away his garment, got up. I don't need this anymore. The Messiah's here. The Healer's here. I don't need this. I don't need this anymore. And he just dropped that coat. And I envision it in my mind like this. They led him up to Jesus. He was just... And He said, bring him here. And he got right up there to Him. And so he just dropped the coat. Oh. Thank God. Didn't need that anymore.
Now, look. Listen to Jesus. "Jesus answered him, What wilt thou that I should do unto thee? The blind man said, Lord, that I might receive my sight. And Jesus said, Go your way. Your faith hath made you whole". That word whole is sozo. It means healed. It means saved. It means prospered. It's a marvelous word. And he followed Jesus in the way. So can you see it? Jesus said, "Bartimaeus, what can I do for you"? Now he needed to hear him say it. I learned that from Gloria Jean. Copeland, that is. He needed to hear him say it. He could have, but of course, he wouldn't have been in the Bible if he had, but he needed to hear him say it. Jesus just said, "Bartimaeus, what can I do for you"? Lord, I want to receive my sight. He said, "Okay. Your faith made you whole".
Now, what's that mean, your faith made you whole? That means he mixed his faith with what he already knew. He mixed his faith with it. Remember Hebrews, what is it, 4:2? The gospel was preached to them, not being mixed with faith was worthless. Didn't do anything. He mixed his faith with it when he dropped that coat. Jesus. Hallelujah.
Oh, come on. How easy is that? What can I do for you, Bartimaeus? That I might receive my sight. Okay. Your faith made you whole go on. So he just followed Him in the way. He became a disciple of Jesus that day. I wonder where he showed up next. Now that would be... There's a lot of things we're going to find out when we get to Heaven. We know his name. I want to know Peter's mother-in-law's name. I want to know the woman with the issue of blood. I want to know her name. The woman with no issue with blood. So easy. And He's the same Jesus. He's the same. He will never change. He is good, and He's the healer, and He wants you well.